Titan X-Wing Fall League Month 2 AAR

Titan Fall League Month 2 AAR

Well, the biggest takeaway I have from the event was that the Y-Wing with EU and the Autoblaster Turret (ABT) it a really solid choice.  I chose poorly and should have played the S&V list with N’Dru instead of the Hired Gun with EU/ABT.  The Y is nothing flashy, but it is solid.  With the combo I was flying I had the one essentially hunt down and very nearly take down ALL of the TIEs in a Palp Ace build.  The Inquisitor got in a shot as PS 8 with the “double damage” critical to kill me just before my 3 Dice with Predator and Focus would have very likely finished him off…  Eh, Cobrabane killed the Shuttle easily in 2 shots then got in the last hit on the Inquisitor.  This will change quite a bit when Fenn Rau comes out “soon”.  The Mandalorian fighter is just a LOT better than the Kihraxz in pretty much every measurable way…  Yes, I trade a Shield for an Agility, but…  In any case, the Y-wing was a solid choice.  In 2 of my games Cobrabane did well, but blanking out on a 4+ Dice Agility roll means he died in my other two…  Eh, dice game, but in order to make him ALMOST as good an Ace as the Imperials fielded, he was 37 points…  Not really worth it.  I DID build this one to take down the Palp Aces with the Shuttle, and it does that fairly well.  Surprisingly well in fact.  But by the time I was in my fourth game I was pretty brain dead and forgot simple things like the fact that Kavil (Y-Wing) was kitted out as a Bomber.  I could easily have gotten in a bit more damage with that, but no…  So, Whisper/Decimator was beyond what this build could handle…  Mind, Kanji’s and Marty’s Rebels DID in fact both take them down, so not unbeatable by any means.  Kanji’s build with the PS 10 Poe was more than a match for Whisper.  The Decimator is still just a big target…  Mind, it DOES have a lot of Hull, but no Defense to speak of…

So, in my games, the Z-95 was ALWAYS the weak link.  Solid for what it was I guess, I should have done the Cluster Missiles rather than the Concussion I guess, but I’ve seen that fail against anything on a TIE frame with 2 chances for the 3 Agility to burn me…  2 x 4 Dice attacks with Guidance Chips only turning one…  Ideally Lone Wolf and Glitterstem making all Focus Hits and getting at least one re-roll each attack is fairly solid, but…  I get at best one shot with them.  Most people see it and kill it quickly before I set up that combo so I swapped in the Concussion for the Range 3 and even more ability to get the one solid hit…  Not horrible, but going against an actual Ace?  PS 7 means that most of them shoot me first and I still only have 2 Shields and 2 Hull…  On a slow ship that does not maneuver well.  If I am going that route…  Well, the Y-Wing was always my favorite fighter from the old movies, followed closely by the B-wing…  So, for S&V, the Y-Wing with the Unhinged Astromech is actually surprisingly fast.

I strongly suspect this is the swan song for the TIE Phantom for a bit.  There are going to be a number of ways to mess with them and they REALLY cannot handle Stress well…  The other Imperial Aces I think are going to change a bit…  The mindless Fel with PTL will be hard pressed to deal with Slicer Tools and some of the things that the S&V ships will be able to bring in.  The Rebels will have a VERY interesting Stressbot MK II in the ARC-170 with Tactician and R3-D2 for the Range 2 silliness.  Imperials have the TIE Defenders that hit recently and despite not seeing ANY this weekend, I suspect they are going to be solid going forward.  The Emperor is still probably over powered with unlimited Range for his effect, but other stuff is catching up.

Might fly something like this next Month:

Unnamed Squadron (97)

Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Push the Limit	3
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 34
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Predator	3
Autoblaster Turret	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 34
Hired Gun — Y-Wing	20
Autoblaster Turret	2
Seismic Torpedo	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 29

Simple and brutal…  The Y’s have a fair bit of Hull to chew through and are rolling right at someone.  Fenn Rau is the Ace/Jouster.  5 Dice Attack at Range one so it should hit pretty hard…  PTL, Predator or Fearlessness…  Fearless at Range one has the potential (albeit low) for a 6 Hit Attack…  Just adding a Hit result is powerful, but with all of the restrictions?  PTL on a ship that has Boost and Barrel Roll makes for a FAR superior one I think since I can more easily get to Range one and Arc Dodge where needed...

Titan Fall League month 2

Mkay, League Month 2 is coming up at Titan this weekend…  Looking VERY much like Wave 9 is shipping, but will NOT be here in time so I have to go with what I have now.  I have 3 lists that I am throwing around at this point.  I know that my biggest threat will be Imperial Aces in some form or the other.

The Rebel list is 3 B-Wins:

3B ten (100)

Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Hera Syndulla	1
B-Wing/E2	1
Ship Total: 38
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31

Not bad…  Safe.  Problem is that there Is only Ten Numb who poses ANY threat to a tokened up Ace backed by the Emperor.  Yes, the Blues could probably take a Shuttle or push a lot of damage onto the Decimator…  But a good Imperial player would know the only threat to the Aces and burn it down quick.

The other 2 are S&V…  First is pretty much selling out to get in close to the Aces and ignore their Agility.

Unnamed Squadron (100)

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Predator	3
Autoblaster Turret	2
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Extra Munitions	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 39
Hired Gun — Y-Wing	20
Autoblaster Turret	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 27
Talonbane Cobra — Kihraxz Fighter	28
Adaptability	0
Cloaking Device	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 34

Cobra in the Kihraxz is pretty much the closest I have to an Ace in this faction.  2 Y-Wings with Mechs to go fast with the EU to move 3 hard on a Green and then boost to get close enough for the AB Turrets.  Fun list, and I suspect it will do reasonably well locally at least.  It is all about removing variance by force.  I would hold Cobra back to follow up the Y’s…  I know very well that he can finish off almost anything, or at least have a chance to do so…  Plasma Torpedoes are just a backup really and hopefully something to get in a few hits on say, a Shuttle or Decimator…

Third and probably most likely is a simple straight Ace build for them:

Scum Aces 1 (100)

Talonbane Cobra — Kihraxz Fighter	28
Predator	3
Cloaking Device	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 37
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Predator	3
Autoblaster Turret	2
Bomb Loadout	0
Extra Munitions	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Seismic Charges	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 38
N'Dru Suhlak — Z-95 Headhunter	17
Lone Wolf	2
Concussion Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Guidance Chips	0
Ship Total: 25

The Y-Wing is kitted out as a Bomber here…  N’Dru has the one good Missile shot, then he becomes a flanker for as long as he lives…  He’s still just a Z-95 when it is all said and done, so not a lot left for him to do after the Missile goes in and hopefully gets some good damage or maybe even a kill for me…  Cobrabane again is to be held back and play Linebacker/Free Safety…  Kavil rushes them, dares them to hit him and commit to a course of action…  He IS a threat.so ignoring him is a mistake…  And with bombs I should be able to push damage to anyone that is pursuing me while I bull rush something and avoid variance with AB Turret backed by Predator…  It’ll be fun at least.

X-Wing Testing for Month 2 and random job silliness...

Looking at running a fair number of different things for the next League day…  It is not looking like we’ll have access to the Wave 9 stuff before the 11^th of September, so we’ll be going with what we have…

Scum Aces 1 (100)

Talonbane Cobra — Kihraxz Fighter	28
Predator	3
Cloaking Device	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 37
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Predator	3
Autoblaster Turret	2
Bomb Loadout	0
Extra Munitions	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Seismic Charges	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 38
N'Dru Suhlak — Z-95 Headhunter	17
Lone Wolf	2
Concussion Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Guidance Chips	0
Ship Total: 25

Simple enough build..  N’Dro starts on a Flank, the other 2 on the opposite one.  Go fast, hit hard and hope they die first…  The Autoblaster Turret for the (usually) 3 Dice Attack that cannot be dodged backed by Predator…  Might swap it for VI and upgrade the Bombs perhaps…  But this is pretty simple as I said.  HAVE to get close to the Imperial Aces or say, IG-88/Dengar that I need to put some hits onto…

The other one I am throwing around a bit is:

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Push the Limit	3
Autoblaster Turret	2
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 37
Drea Renthal — Y-Wing	22
Autoblaster Turret	2
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 29
Talonbane Cobra — Kihraxz Fighter	28
Adaptability	0
Cloaking Device	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 34

The Rebel 3 B list might be a safer bet…  So I’ll likely try to get in some test games with both of these builds…  I got in some practice with the Miranda build, but I am fairly confident that will not work so well for me…  I need something to take down Imperial Aces and Dengaroo…  Oddly, no one played it last Month, but Imps were EVERYWHERE…  And against the Aces, even 4 4 Dice Attacks get shrugged off and almost never actually hit, so the TLT is no longer the answer it once was...

Work is...  Well, we are continuing I guess.  It does appear as if the the title change has been at the least delayed if not derailed.  So, I'll wait it out I guess and see what happens.  On the major plus side, met with some folks at another IT organization and there are a good number of jobs opening up starting...  Well, now.  The first JUST got posted.  I do not think that one is a fit for me, but there ARE several I'll be applying for.  I did go to the trouble to get that silly advanced degree and all, so time to move on perhaps if there is no chance of moving up in this organization....  No hurry, I still have a good job, but there is a difference between a job and a career.  Ad it is time I think to pay attention to my career... 

Operational Exhaustion and a bit of X-Wing theory crafting...

Operational Exhaustion

Been thinking on this quite a bit recently as we continue doing more with the same number of people…  Well for now at least.  Turnover WILL occur at some point, although we have avoided it thus far…  Mostly due to the fact that there has been zero movement at the University to this point.  Some things SHOULD be moving now, but nothing yet.  I just think that my current organization is running the risk of Operational Exhaustion…  We are doing more and more, but we have fewer people to do the work.  And the old way of having people volunteer to take on the extra work…  The younger ones especially telling on this.  They’re getting VERY quiet.  And not volunteering for anything else.  Waiting on things to break free or just break.  When even the most optimistic told me that he now agrees that our organization is at its breaking point…  And that we cannot easily absorb another loss…  Kind of disheartening since I put in a LOT of work building up the team and do not want to see it all fall apart…  But, I need to keep my own Department protected and as it seems my own career will be moving in a direction I had not expected at this point.  I was looking at moving on and wanted to be sure that I was leaving things prepared for my successor…  But we’ll see if the latest plan hatched works…  Restructuring things, and different reporting lines…  Oh, and more importantly, getting my actual title.  IFF it happens of course.  The other thing I was gearing up for has not been posted yet…  I’ll probably still apply, but I am hoping this only provides the incentive for the College to make the changes I need to stay.  I know previously it was deemed “not worth the effort”, so we’ll see if they have changed their minds…  So back to wait and see as the first week fo the Semester is hitting and I’m exhausted…

Getting in some theory crafting on X-Wing…  I think I’ll be playing Rebels again…

3B ten (100)

Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Hera Syndulla	1
B-Wing/E2	1
Ship Total: 38
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing	22
Fire-Control System	2
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Ship Total: 31

This one is fairly simple…  I’ll swap in the Collision Detectors and Seismic Torpedoes to clear obstacles in place of the FCS…  Ten is just there to force through hits as his Criticals cannot be dodged…  Well, one of them at least.

Unnamed Squadron (100)

Dash Rendar — YT-2400	36
Push the Limit	3
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Kanan Jarrus	3
Engine Upgrade	4
Outrider	5
Ship Total: 58
Lothal Rebel — VCX-100	35
Fire-Control System	2
Autoblaster Turret	2
Hera Syndulla	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 42

This one is a simple 2 ship build.  Super Dash and the VCX-100 present a LOT of Hull to chew through.  The Autoblaster Turrets cannot be dodged, and he base 4 Attack is pretty brutal…  o essentially, line up the Emperor and try to take it down quick?  This might well be what I fly next time if Wave 9 is not out.  The 3 B-Wings are amusing, but not overly competitive I think….  This one looks like fun.  And of course being a big fan of Rebels (the show)…  This looks like it will be fitting…

Wave 8, hoping for Wave 9 for next Month's X-Wing...

So, spending a bit of time thinking on the state of the game at the moment…  Honestly I am REALLY hoping to have Wave 9 available to play for the next event on the 11^th of September.  Right now, it’s a bit stale I think.  The Palp Aces are simply too good.  Yes, Joel’s Dash/Miranda build did well but I think it was a bit of an anomaly with it doing pretty well against the Whisper/Decimator builds or the Defenders that some of us were flying.  I’m not entirely sure that a standard Palp Aces build would not be able to simply tear apart Miranda too quickly.  Seeing the Emperor assist Whisper to regularly ignore a 4 hit attack is a bit disheartening, and while Joel’s Miranda build used the Homing Missiles to throw out a 5 Dice Attack usually with Focus and the built in reroll as HM does NOT eat up the required Target Lock on launch.  With the inability to spend Evade tokens, you SHOULD be able to push through a few damage, but that assumes average or better rolls of course.  I suspect now that most of us have seen this now, the bum rush of the PS 8 Miranda might well be what happens.  Getting in close or arc dodging as the Missiles are locked to the Front arc…  Dash is good, but lacking Regen, and seeing the regular dismissal of a single 4 Dice attack these days?  So, I’m thinking that as things stand now, there ARE a few things that are top tier, but that tier is dominated by the Imperials and the Emperor is a BIG part of this.  Without a range restriction, his power is REALLY good.  I’m edging toward it being too good honestly.  Yes, it takes 2 Crew slots and IS 8 points, but…  Just looking over it with say, Soonter Fel or the Inquisitor?  If you use it to save one point of Damage?  That’s the equivalent of ~ 10 points. Probably more as with the Emperor at this point, you are typically looking at a Token Stack meaning that you need only one Dice with ANY paint on it to completely ignore a lot of Attacks…  Usually with 3-5 Agility Dice, you can expect at LEAST 2 results.  With Focus AND an Evade token combined with the Emperor just setting a Dice to Evade, you can very easily ignore an obnoxious number of hits… 

So, on to Wave 9…  This seems to be a VERY anti Ace Wave.  There are things like the Lancer Pursuit craft that can just assign Tractor Tokens and/or Stress?  Black Market Slicer Tools (BMST) to use an Action to convert a Stress to a Damage Card assigned to the Ship?  Yes, please.  So, as a result, E-Wings go even further down the “playable” list as Corran Horn with PTL was about the only one seen…  But Fel and the Inquisitor will be less likely to use their PTL which is at this point the standard upgrade for them?  These I think will become less used.  But in general the Aces that we are seeing now will I think get used a lot less…  The ARC-170 might well see the return of the Stress Hog…  It will be a bit more expensive than the Y-Wing variant, but it will be a LOT more useful in the modern game…  And Stress is one of the things that killed off the Aces in the past…

Small based ships with 2 90-degree Firing Arcs are here now, so Arc Dodging has become a LOT more difficult…  There are also a few more things like mods that give you a Barrel Roll action…  And now there is a Torpedo that REMOVES Terrain during the Action phase and potentially damages everything in Range 1…  This might be fun against Swarms coming through the Asteroids…  But there are now ways to get Damage through outside of the Shooting phase and since they are not things that can be defended against, the current obnoxious Defense that the Palp Aces bring to the table get bypassed… 

Looking at flying my B-Wings again…  But it is going to be difficult currently.  HOPING to have the Wave 9 stuff to get the upgrades I think will push them over the edge into the top tier…  OK, out of the bottom tier at least J  I think they will surprise the heck out of some people…

More random tales from the desert...

So, more on the whole first combat deployment…  Going with another “Kelly’s Heroes” or maybe “M.A.S.H” theme… It gave me a fairly warped view on how the Army worked.  I was wrong of course, there is SO much bureaucratic BS everywhere…  Well, except in the confusion as we prepared to actually play in the desert.  In general, I found that the attitude most units had toward resupplying Engineers was just a small step ahead of “just give the stuff to the enemy” …  So, we got creative.  My Squad Leader was former Airborne with the 82nd so he had a very good idea how this sort of thing worked…  We made ourselves available to the Supply SGT so we had the first crack at anything that was, say…  Just laying around the port…  In the truck it went and we’d figure out what we ended up with later.  How we got the desert camouflage uniforms and a few extra pairs of the desert and jungle boots…  Whatever happened to be coming off the boats, the Navy guys just wanted it off their pier and they did not care WHERE it went as long as it was clearly Americans taking it off the pier…

Worked with bigger things as well…  The ACE is/was essentially an armored bulldozer.  It was determined that we needed one…  Of course, lacking such a thing, and since none of us were trained in the operation of such a vehicle…  So, we went to the port.  The Navy was offloading some, and there was a Soldier from a unit that had moved to the front leaving him behind.  So, we talked to him and he asked to come with us to the front…  Anything to get off that port.  Being detached in the wrong service meant “issues”, so… We said, no problem, we were of course short per usual and it was no problem.  The ACE we decided to snag was CLEARLY marked USMC and we were clearly Army…  And the Navy boys just wanted the damn thing off their docks, and they did not care that we were clearly stealing it....  So, we went to the front with a vehicle we stole and a driver who was probably AWOL if we were concerned with the technicalities… 

Our weapons were more of the same sort of thing…  Our unit got issued the M-16A2 just before we deployed, so we zeroed the weapons and everyone was firing them for the first time.  These were the first ones with the heavier barrel and the 3 round burst.  Mine had the 203 grenade launcher, but that was a fairly standard thing, our Platoon had 7 of the things.  But back at the port, we found a warehouse where there were weapons…  We went in and a crusty old Marine Gunnery SGT was in charge…  He found out that we were Engineers and he set us up with extra M3 Grease Guns, 1911’s and we grabbed a few M-16A1’s…  We wanted the lower receivers so we could use the fully automatic fire with the heavier barrels of the A2’s…  Oh, and tracer ammo for the M3’s…  .45 cal tracer ammo J…  Fun stuff, and that’ll come up later…  But there we were literally wandering around this giant warehouse of weapons with shopping carts…  This was NOT the norm elsewhere I was to find out of course, but here…  Well, it worked.

This sort of thing REALLY helped me later when I ended up going Airborne myself and for my second combat deployment.  The “Make do with what you have” combined with “if you find it, it’s yours” WRT resupply…  Got pretty good at improvising and adapting to rapidly changing situations…  In my last chat with the Faculty Director of my organization he said that I was “Unnaturally calm in stressful situations”, but I’m fairly sure he had no idea WHY I was that calm in a University setting…  Not like anyone is shooting at us.  I slept through incoming artillery knowing there wasn’t anything I could do in anything I could do in any case…  13-ton aluminum vehicle loaded out with 2-3 tons of ammo and explosives, so if we got hit…  Well, it would be quick and no worries about just being wounded…

Ah, old Army memories...

Before I joined the Army I had read several books and movies that really stuck out in my mind back then.  Specifically, “Catch-22”, “M.A.S.H” and “Kelly’s Heroes”.  I remember thinking that there is NO way that the Army was like that…  And yet when I actually joined…  Mostly my first combat deployment was boring…  I got a killer tan and played a LOT of cards.  I stopped counting after 10,000 games…  So, a fair bit of boredom.  I did also get a killer tan in the ripped up BDU shorts and T-Shirt that I wandered around in regularly…  Unlike most of the folks from the wee damp islands my ancestors came from (Scotland, Ireland, England for the most part) I tan REALLY quickly and well…  So much so that when my youngest was born the poor Nurse mistakenly assumed I was Mexican as she commented that “She’ll look Mexican like her Father” ….  My reply of “Do I know him?” of course probably cleared it up, but…

Yeah, there was some of it that was…  More interesting I guess.  My Bronze Star was a “Catch-22” award as far as I was concerned.  Standard procedure when a set demolition failed to ignite would have been to have the Demo Specialist (me) walk down range with a Det Pack (basically a satchel pack full of explosives) and manually set the charge to “clear” the charge by blowing it up manually…  We had Cav Scouts with us, they set the charges and since they were pretty fearful of the blasting caps, likely they did not seat them fully…  So, when the time fuse burned down it did not ignite the caps which would have set off the HE charge (C-4) …  Now, a bit more about the charge…  It was a charge set in an ammo bunker that we found to be booby trapped and contained several tons of ammunition and chemical rounds (Soviet 122mm stuff).  So, NO WAY I was walking downrange knowing that.  I yelled over to the TC of one of the Bradley’s, had him get me a range to the bunker door.  So, knowing it was 300m, I told them to button up and loaded a grenade into my 203.  NOT the preferred method for setting off sensitized explosives, but a grenade in the bunker DOES work.  So, when the CO found out they were left with the choice of punishing me for disregarding established procedure, but doing it in a way that a) worked and b) was FAR safer to all concerned or rewarding me with a medal.  For the record, unlike CPT Yossarian from the book/movie I did NOT in fact show up to the award ceremony nude…  No ceremony, just the note on my record and a neat little medal…  Never even put the ribbon on my uniform.  THAT pissed off the last 1SGT I had in Germany.  I wore my greens to my best friend’s funeral and he got offended that I had what he felt were too many awards on my uniform.  So, he checked my records…  Well, he was surprised to find I was not even wearing all the awards I was authorized and that pissed him off.  Whatever, it illustrated the difference between a young SGT from a line combat company and an older 1SGT in rear echelon companies his whole career…  

Weird memories surface as I get my resume set for yet another potential job search and I start getting serious about getting back into shape...  Guessing I was about 190 in that picture, I was 205 when I was in the best shape of my life before attending the "Ft Benning School for Belligerent Boys"...  No clue what I weighed on completion of that course, they stopped weighing us when they realized that much weight loss that quickly was "less healthy".  I did weigh 238 on reporting to Basic and weighed 168 on graduation...  NOT wanting to lose THAT much THAT quickly again, but dropping some 30 or so pounds would probably be good...